How to Use Your Nose and Mind to Heal

Do you perk up when you smell coffee brewing? Does your memory awaken with the smell of freshly mowed grass? Your sense of smell is powerful in relaxing, warning or reviving you. Here you'll breathe to help heal and to relax you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Bathroom where you can sit in a tub for 20 minutes
• Room where there are no outside aromas, think office rather than kitchen
• A familiar street where you can walk quietly and slowly

1. Essential oils are from plants Shop for some aromatherapy products (essential oils extracted from plants) at your drug store. Consider fragrances that are appealing--grapefruit, orange, lavender, eucalyptus or peppermint. Some oils are for relaxation (lavender, Ylang Ylang and Vetivert from scented lemon grass) while others revitalize (juniper, carrot oil and sandlewood).
2. Pour your oils, salts or beads into the tub and inhale deeply through your nose, pausing and holding your breath, then exhaling slowly through your mouth. Pass the time by breathing rather than thinking. If disturbing thoughts come to you, acknowledge them and imagine that they are floating past you out of sight.
3. Find time to spend in a room where you want it pure and protected from negative things, people or objects. Buy either a smudge spray or a smudge bundle (sage stems that you burn) and wave the smudge slowly as you walk around. You have prepared a space to bring about peace of mind.
4. smelling a flower Take a slow walk on a quiet street and with each step, pause and smell what is around you. Burning trash, garlic, bacon frying, diesel fumes are odors that you can't miss. Let your mind wander as you associate the smells with old memories.

Tips & Warnings

• The ancient Egyptians burned aromatic substances to purify their courtyards. They also used essential oils in cosmetics.
• Astronauts staved off homesickness when going to the moon by taking bottled odors that were reproduced for them.